Last week, WWE SmackDown presented its “Best Of” episode, looking back at some of the top blue brand matches and moments from 2024. This week, the show was back with a brand new live episode and did not hold anything back.
Kevin Owens won the WWE United States Championship tournament and is now set to face Logan Paul at the WWE Royal Rumble. Tyler Bate made his official WWE main roster debut, teaming with long-time friend and occasional enemy, Butch, to defeat Pretty Deadly. And in the main event, Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns and The Bloodline disrupted the action resulting in General Manager Nick Aldis making his next defense a Fatal 4-Way.
Wrestlenomics reports that this week’s SmackDown saw a huge leap in viewership from the “Best Of” episode that aired the week before. The show drew an average overall audience of 2,465,000 viewers, with a .67 rating. This is an 82% increase in average overall and 139% in P18 – 49 viewership from the week before. It is up 22% in average overall and 33% in P18 – 49 viewership compared to the previous four-week average. This is the highest average overall and P18 – 49 viewership since the September 15, 2023 episode.
The final quarter-hour of the show, featuring the main event number one contender triple threat match between Randy Orton, LA Knight, and AJ Styles, as well as the beatdown from The Bloodline, drew the most average overall and P18 – 49 viewers. It had an average overall audience of 2,623,000 viewers, with about 969,000 of those in the key P18 – 49 demo.
The show saw its lowest average overall and P18 – 49 viewership in the sixth quarter-hour, with about 2,255,000 viewers and about 838,000 of those in the P18 – 49 demo. It featured the end of Butch and Bate versus Pretty Deadly, a video about Knight, an ad break, and a backstage angle involving Aldis and Ashante Adonis.
Following SmackDown, AEW Rampage aired on TNT and saw its best overall and P18 – 49 viewership since October 13, 2023. It drew an average overall audience of 406,000 viewers and a .14 rating. This is up 25% in average overall viewership and 27% in P18 – 49 viewership from the week before.